Im reading The Queen's Necklace by Frances Mossiker at the moment and she states that Marie Antoinette married when she was 15 years old, she even quotes a primary sourse from Baroness d'Oberkirch who praises the fifteen year old dauphine's looks at the time when she arives to France. I always believed she was 14 like its written in Antonia Fraser biography of Marie Antoinette but then i remember when i was reading The lost king of France it also mentioned Marie Antoinette being 15 when she married so now im confused can someone tell me what was her true age when she got married?

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Thu Apr 15, 2010 7:33 pm

Lilly

Royalty

Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2008 4:10 pmPosts: 710

Re: Marie Antoinette age when she got married

Born November 2, 1755 and Married May 1770 so that makes her 14 years old at the time of her wedding. She would turn 15 in Novemver 1770.

Thu Apr 15, 2010 8:14 pm

Mlle de Fontanges

Noble

Joined: Mon Apr 12, 2010 10:42 pmPosts: 22Location: london

Re: Marie Antoinette age when she got married

Thankyou Its strage how historians who do so much reserch cant get a simple detail like the age right

_________________At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet - Plato

Thu Apr 15, 2010 9:00 pm

Lilly

Royalty

Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2008 4:10 pmPosts: 710

Re: Marie Antoinette age when she got married

I know, it's incredible isn't it? Makes you wonder right from the start .......Another thing I've read is that she was 38 when she died - wrong again - she was 37 - she would have turned thirty eight on her birthday which was a couple of weeks after her death.

Thu Apr 15, 2010 9:14 pm

Mlle de Fontanges

Noble

Joined: Mon Apr 12, 2010 10:42 pmPosts: 22Location: london

Re: Marie Antoinette age when she got married

In one of my history lessions we were talking about Marie Antoinette and my teacher thought she was 40 i was appalled, he looked a bit embarised and dismisive (like who would know that ) when i corrected him

_________________At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet - Plato

Thu Apr 15, 2010 9:32 pm

annies sis

Prince/Princesse

Joined: Tue Aug 05, 2008 4:36 amPosts: 370Location: America

Re: Marie Antoinette age when she got married

It seems like every time I do research on a historical person I get a myriad of different dates for one simple event like a wedding, birth or death. You would think these historians would do more research before writing a book!

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Sun Apr 18, 2010 9:15 pm

jimcheval

Prince/Princesse

Joined: Mon Oct 20, 2008 5:32 amPosts: 294

Re: Marie Antoinette age when she got married

While I'd agree that published historians make some shocking errors, I think the problem here may be in math, not underlying facts. If you only calculate by year, you would end up with 15. A sloppy way to do it, but as a mathematician pointed out a few years ago most American have an ignorance of mathematics that would be the equivalent of not knowing who Shakespeare is in literature. And really don't worry about it either.

(By the way - did anyone notice the age given in the blurb for this section? )

Exactly, they dont pay attention to the exact date of the event, just the year on most accounts.

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Tue Apr 20, 2010 12:55 am

Adrienne

Royalty

Joined: Thu Nov 18, 2004 6:27 amPosts: 456Location: Melbourne

Re: Marie Antoinette age when she got married

jimcheval wrote:

(By the way - did anyone notice the age given in the blurb for this section? )

*LOL* I think you may have caught me out there Jim. I was working off an older version of the Marie Antoinette Online Biography when I cut and pasted the little blurbs into the new forums, and it would seem that it was wrong in one of its early iterations. I just checked the text for the current biography page again and I find that somewhere along the way it was changed to 14. I shall have to do a swift edit before anyone else notices

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Tue Apr 20, 2010 9:26 am

Ludy

Prince/Princesse

Joined: Thu Aug 30, 2007 9:42 amPosts: 653Location: Paris

Re: Marie Antoinette age when she got married

All right, she was 14 when she got married and she was but 19 and not 20 when she became a queen) even her contemporaries got it wrong when calling her "little 20 year old queen". But, I mean when it comes to History it is really natural to allow only for the years.

_________________" Perfection is not achieved when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

Sat May 01, 2010 2:27 pm

Lilly

Royalty

Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2008 4:10 pmPosts: 710

Re: Marie Antoinette age when she got married

Louis XV died in May of 1774. Marie Antoinette was 18 years old then. She would not have turned 19 until November 2, 1774.So.....she was 18 when she became Queen of France.

Sat May 01, 2010 3:28 pm

Ludy

Prince/Princesse

Joined: Thu Aug 30, 2007 9:42 amPosts: 653Location: Paris

Re: Marie Antoinette age when she got married

Right ! it's quite ironical to comment on such a topic and make such a mistake oneself !)

_________________" Perfection is not achieved when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

Sat May 01, 2010 4:07 pm

Lilly

Royalty

Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2008 4:10 pmPosts: 710

Re: Marie Antoinette age when she got married

Lady Marie wrote:

As was the tradition of any Austrian woman to marry a French dauphin the age of both of them was 14 when they married

No, they were not both 14.

Marie Antoinette was 14. Louis XVI was 15 (born August 23, 1754)

Married in May 1770. (3 months before Louis turned 16)

Tue Nov 06, 2012 7:01 pm

History Detective

Marquis/Marquise

Joined: Fri Oct 26, 2012 8:25 pmPosts: 75

Re: Marie Antoinette age when she got married

This thread is making me laugh! You wouldn't believe all the date errors I find in history books as I research the life of the Marquis de La Fayette. When I first started my project, I was naively unaware that ten different authors could come up with ten different ages and dates for various events in his lifetime, and I soon began to feel like I was going to tear my hair out with all the calculations and detailed searches I had to do to come up with the right answers. Even names of his family members are often ridiculously incorrect in a number of books (this is especially irritating when the authors get the name of his wife wrong), and I have often asked, "Why can't authors just take a little extra time to verify what they are writing?"

I have since managed to control the "tearing my hair out" thing as it relates to my study of La Fayette. But now I hear that there is the same problem as I dig into Marie Antoinette's history?

Tue Jan 15, 2013 8:50 pm

masaruta4at

Peasant

Joined: Fri Sep 04, 2015 11:45 amPosts: 5

Re: Marie Antoinette age when she got married

Quote:

:lol: This thread is making me laugh! You wouldn't believe all the date errors I find in history books as I research the life of the Marquis de La Fayette. When I first started my project, I was naively unaware that ten different authors could come up with ten different ages and dates for various events in his lifetime, and I soon began to feel like I was going to tear my hair out with all the calculations and detailed searches I had to do to come up with the right answers. Even names of his family members are often ridiculously incorrect in a number of books (this is especially irritating when the authors get the name of his wife wrong), and I have often asked, "Why can't authors just take a little extra time to verify what they are writing?"

I have since managed to control the "tearing my hair out" thing as it relates to my study of La Fayette. But now I hear that there is the same problem as I dig into Marie Antoinette's history?

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